Cost Estimation and Budgeting

Cost management Data collection & cost estimation Cost accounting Cost controll Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-2

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-3 Common Sources of Project Cost  Labor  Materials  Subcontractors  Equipment & facilities  Travel  …

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-4 Types of Costs  Direct Vs. Indirect  Direct: clearly assigned  Indirect: overhead, administration, marketing  Recurring Vs. Nonrecurring  Fixed Vs. Variable  Normal Vs. Expedited

Developing direct labor cost Total direct labor cost = = (hourly rate) x (hours needed) x (overhead charge) x (personal time) Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-5

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-6 Cost Classifications Direct LaborXXXX Building LeaseXXXX ExpediteXXXX MaterialXXXX Non-recurring Direct Indirect Fixed Recurring Variable Normal Expedited Costs

Cost estimation Clear definition of project costs at the beginning decreases the possibility of estimation errors. With greater initial accuracy the likelihood of completing within budget estimates is greater. To be able to create good estimations the project must be broken down by deliverables, work packages and tasks. Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-7

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-8 Cost Estimation Methods  Ballpark (order of magnitude) ±30%: preliminary  Comparative ±15%: historical data, parameter estimation  Feasibility ±10%: real data, after planning  Definitive ±5%: after design, known prices

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-9 Learning Curves Learning curve theory states that as the quantity of items produced doubles, costs decrease at a predictable rate. The unit curve:

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-10 Problems with Cost Estimation Low initial estimates Unexpected technical difficulties Lack of definition Specification changes External factors

Budgeting Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-11

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-12 Creating a Project Budget Top-down: from overall project costs to major wp-s Bottom-up: from work packages to overall project cost Activity-based costing (ABC) Project Plan WBS SchedulingBudgeting The budget is a plan that identifies the resources, goals and schedule that allows a firm to achieve those goals Statement of Work

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-13 Activity-Based Costing Projects use activities & activities use resources 1.Assign costs to activities that use resources 2.Identify cost drivers associated with this activity 3.Compute a cost rate per cost driver unit or transaction 4.Multiply the cost driver rate times the volume of cost driver units used by the project

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-14 Budget Contingencies The allocation of extra funds to cover uncertainties and improve the chance of finishing on time. Contingencies are needed because Project scope may change Murphy’s Law is present Cost estimation must anticipate interaction costs Normal conditions are rarely encountered

Planned cost – Committed cost = Cost variance Variance can be positive or negative Negative variance is always bad, but the positive is not necessarily good. Planned and actual costs

Examples What is the variance if the budgeted cost is 200 and the actual cost is 250? What is the actual cost if the budgeted cost is 2000 and the variance is 500? What is the planned cost, if the actual cost is 120 and the variance is -30? Planned cost – 120 = -30 thus Planned cost = – actual cost = 500 thus Actual cost = – 150 = variance thus Variance = -50

3+1 alternative sources of a positive variance Good control Some outgoing not recorded Some activity costs overestimated + Activities for the period in question are not finished    costs:  planning: 

3 alternative sources of a negative variance Poor control Extra unbudgeted work was included Some activity costs were underestimated   

Example There is a project with three activites planned for a year –‘a’ with a planned cost of 1000, –‘b’ with a planned cost of 500 and –‘c’ with a planned cost of ‘a’ activity turned out to be more expensive (with an additional 200). ‘b’ was done as budgeted. ‘c’ is not finished in the year, and only 1000 was spent on it. An additional ‘d’ activity was needed and performed with a cost of 300. What is the cost variance for the given year? What is the conclusion on the cost performance? ( ) – ( ) = 0

How to find out the true reason? Improving the data : percentage of activity remaining percentage of activity completed Variance analysis: –Variance can be broken down into a set of subbudget variances (like labour, overhead etc.) –A subbudget variance may be split into: Volume/quantity variance Rates/prices variance

Cost & schedule variances For any instant we can calculate: –BCWS: budgeted cost of work scheduled –BCWP: budgeted cost of work performed –ACWP: actual cost of work performed From these, two variances can be derived: –Schedule variance in cost terms = BCWP – BCWS –Cost variance = BCWP – ACWP

Cost & schedule variances negativezero negativeRunning late with overspent Running late but no overspent zeroOn time but overspent On time and no overspent Cost variance Schedule variance

Example Project data: Representative survey project with 300 given addresses and 3 interviewers Interviewers are paid as follows: –1000 HUF per day per interviewer as a fixed pay –400 HUF per interview as a variable pay Time schedule: –10 interviews per day per interviewer –Work packages: 30 interviews per day a)Calculate the BCWS for every work package & day. b)Given the following progress report for the first 6 days, calculate the percentages of activity completed, the BCWP and the ACWP.

Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Day 6Day 7Day 8Day 9Day10 A B C D E F G H I J BCWS BCWP ACWP

Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Day 6Day 7Day 8Day 9Day 10 A1884 B16104 C D1266 E168 F12 G H I J BCWS BCWP ACWP Progress report

Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Day 6 A18 60%8 87%4 100% B16 53%10 87%4 100% C14 47%10 80%0 80% D12 40%6 60%6 80% E16 53%8 80% F12 40% G H I J BCWS BCWP ACWP Progress report

Calculate the variances for day 6 Schedule variance in cost terms = BCWP – BCWS – = Cost variance = BCWP – ACWP – = The project is running late and overspent.

Forecasting and comparison of projects Schedule performance index (SPI) = BCWP/BCWS Cost performance index (CPI) = BCWP/ACWP Budgeted cost to complete (BCC) = BAC - BCWP Estimated cost to complete (ECC) = BCC/CPI Forecast cost at completition (FCC) = ACWP+ECC Calculate these for the previous example.

Solution BAC = CPI = / = 95.24% SPI = / = 80.00% BCC = – = ECC = / (720/756) = FCC = =

Problem solving abde c There is a small project with the following network diagram: The following table contains the information on the activity durations and costs: Activity labelDuration (day)Cost of the activity a1100 b150 c260 d390 e240 Plot a Gantt chart from the information above and calculate the BCWS for every day of the project.

Solution taskDay 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Day 6Day 7 A100 B50 C30 D E20 BCWS

Problem solving In the previous project, the project manager receives a progress report of the first 4 days, with the following information: –Activity ‘a’ is completed –Activity ‘b’ is completed –Activity ‘c’ is 50% completed –Activity ‘d’ is 33.33% completed –Costs are calculated with completition ratio Calculate BCWP and ACWP for the first 4 days Calculate CPI, SPI, BCC, ECC and FCC

Solution BCWP = ACWP = (60) (90) = = 210 CPI = BCWP / ACWP = 1 SPI = BCWP / BCWS = 210 / 270 = 0.78 BCC = BAC – BCWP = 340 – 210 = 130 ECC = BCC / CPI = 130 FCC = ACWP + ECC = BAC / CPI = 340

Thanks for the attention Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8-35